Drexciya drains the claps, cowbells and tomtoms, siphons off
the salsa from Electro. With the vocoder id deleted, 90s Electro
becomes even more enthralling, even more inhibiting. Such tracks
as '93's Danger Bay and Positron Island are monsters
from the low end which submerge you in liquid dystopia. Acrid
frequencies clench the nerves like tazers, oscillations wince
across the body in wave motion, abrasive tones remove cotton
wool from your ears and vigorously scour inside the brainpan.
Jagged snare velocities pinch the nerves until you're locked
uptight. Sea Snake's scorching deathray sweeps the seacraters
with its acoustic searchlight of astringent 303.

Every Drexciya EP navigates the depths of the Black Atlantic,
the submerged worlds populated by Drexciyans, Lardossans, Darthouven
Fish Men and Mutant Gillmen. In the sleevenotes to The Quest,
their '97 concept double CD, the Drexciyans are revealed to
be a marine species descended from 'pregnant America-bound African
slaves' thrown overboard 'by the thousands during labour for
being sick and disruptive cargo. Could it be possible for humans
to breathe underwater? A foetus in its mother's womb is certainly
alive in an aquatic environment. Is it possible that they could
have given birth at sea to babies that never needed air? Recent
experiments have shown mice able to breathe liquid oxygen, a
premature human infant saved from certain death by breathing
liquid oxygen through its underdeveloped lungs. These facts
combined with reported sightings of Gillmen and Swamp Monsters
in the coastal swamps of the Southeastern United States make
the slave trade theory startingly feasible.'

Drexciyans are 'water breathing, aquatically mutated descendants,'
webbed mutants of the Black Atlantic, amphibians adapted for
the ocean's abyssal plains, a phylum disconnected from the aliens
who adapted to land. As Mark Sinker argued in '92, 'The ships
landed long ago: they already laid waste whole societies, abducted
and genetically altered whole swathes of citizenry. Africa and
America -- and so by extension Europe and Asia -- are already
in the various ways Alien Nation.' Drexciya use electronics
to replay the alien abduction of slavery with a fictional outcome:
'Did they migrate from the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi
River Basin and to the Great Lakes of Michigan? Do they walk
among us? Are they more advanced than us?'

Sinker's breakthrough is to bring alien abduction back to earth,
to transfer the trauma from out there to yesternow. The border
between social reality and science fiction, social fiction and
science reality is an optical illusion, as Donna Haraway has
pointed out. They have been here all along and they are you.
You are the alien you are looking for.

Fictionalizing Frequencies

Drexciya fictionalize frequencies into sound pictures of unreal
environments -- what Kraftwerk termed tone films -- not filled
with cars, bikes or trains but rather UAOs, soundcrafts. In
'93's Bubble Metropolis, Lardossan Cruiser 8-203 X prepares
to dock. The tones of a hydrothermal turbine engine shift gears.
They fictionalize the psychoacoustic volume of a giant submersible:
'This is Drexciyan Cruise Control Bubble 1 to Lardossan Cruiser
8 dash 203 X. Please decrease your speed to 1 point 788 point
4 kilobahn. Unknown turbine engine slows down. Thank you. Lardossan
Cruiser 8 dash 203 X please use extra caution as you pass the
aqua contruction site on the side of a aquabahn. I repeat: Proceed
with Caution. Lardossan Cruiser 8 dash 203 X you are now cleared
for docking. Have a nice stay here on Drexciya. I'm Drexciyan
Cruiser Control X 205. If you have any problems let me know.
Bubble Control Out.'

In a War without Weapons

The Black Atlantean depths are as lethal as the Red Planet
or The Rings of Saturn. With the Molecular Enhancement
EP, the ocean floor becomes the 5th front in The Forever War.
Drexciyan technology solidifies the ocean into hydrocubes. These
blocs of solid water are part of the electrofictional arsenal
of Antivapor Waves, Aquatic Bata Particles and Intensified Magnetrons.

The magnetron is the heart of the radiowave transmitter, used
to power airborne microwave radar sets during WW2. As Arthur
C. Clarke explains, 'When the first experimental magnetron was
carried to America, the face of war changed over a weekend.
Japanese scientists had made and tested an identical device
a year before the British. If they had followed up their invention
we would now be living in a very different world.'

Technology generates the process Sun Ra terms an AlterDestiny,
a bifurcation in time. The magnetron migrates across the mediascape,
changing scale from Marvel Comics 60s supervillain Magneto,
leader of the Evil Mutants, to Drexciya's Intensified Magnetron,
to Killah Priest's 'magnetron which puts your arteries back
apart'.

Drexciya - Uncharted EP - S.I.D-005
A. Hi-Tide
B. Dr. Blowfin's Experiment
NOTE: The S.I.D. series 12's were EP's that were supposed to
be exclusive to the Submerge Somewhere In Detroit store. The
idea was that the only way you could get them was to physically
visit the shop on the ground floor of Submerge's building. A
few of them occasionally turn up at other shops, though. There
were a few previously unreleased tracks from Drexciya, UR, and
a couple of other artists released this way.
Thanks to Submerge's refusal to play the "release and delete"
game, though, these don't fetch the exorbitant prices a lot
of other limited availability releases do. - Dave Walker on
IDM list

HARDWAX (Detroit, USA?)
L.A.M. (Life After Mutation) - Balance of Terror EP - HW 004
- early 1990's?
* 6 tracks (with no titles)
NOTE: A pre-Drexciyan release is without a doubt the L.A.M.
record on Rob Hood's Hardwax label. There are no inscriptions
in the record (apart from NSC, of course). The A-side runs from
inside out whereas the B side is normal. I do not know the publication
date but considering the publication policy of Hardwax (number
10 was published this spring) the record came out in the early
90's. - Benjamin Holzwarth

DREXCIYA RUMOURS:
It is rumoured that one or more Drexciya members have been or
are at the moment in such groups as Elecktroids and Dopplereffekt. Even "Mad Mike" Banks
has been connected with Drexciya once or more times. Since very
few people know the actual identities of Drexciya, these rumours
will undoubtedly go on and on.

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